


Breaking Free

by GreatDaneMom



Series: Criminal Minds Moments [1]
Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-02
Updated: 2015-01-02
Packaged: 2018-03-05 00:52:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3098900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreatDaneMom/pseuds/GreatDaneMom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek is realizing that he is living in a prison for a very long time now - way too long and that he needs to change it, that he needs to break free and put his life back together. The story takes place right after RESTORATION, the night after the team is back in Quantico.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breaking Free

**Author's Note:**

> Please be gentle - this is my first work in english, i am told i am not bad and usually i get my point across to my significant others and kids , who only speak english. And to be honest it´s the language i am most comfortable with, but no matter how long i speak it now, it´s not my first language, that´d be german. 
> 
> I do have a wonderful editor, she even used to be a professional one and told me that there are not much mistakes, but due to technical issues, she can´t help me right now.
> 
> I´d appreciate if you tell me whats awful wrong.
> 
> I hope you enjoy this little piece.

Breaking Free 

“Are you sure?”

The soft voice pulls Derek back to reality. He puts the cooler slowly on top of the ram-shackled table, before he turns around, gazing at him. Not with that desperate fear, that pleading look for understanding in his eyes. The one he had in that small conference room, back at Chicago PD. He looks tired. It´s only a few hours since they´re back. These last couple of days seem to be carved in his face. 

Derek nods, his voice gruff and low, but still the warmth can be heard.

“Yeah, I am, I have to do it if I, if we are wanna be free.”

Now he nods, gently returning the slight reassuring pressure of Dereks hand. 

The sound of car doors closing and creaking footsteps on the gravel outside interrupts the gesture. Seconds later there´s a knock on the door. A little smile appears on Dereks tired, exhausted looking face. 

******************************************

Derek takes a deep breath before he turns towards the door. It´s been a long, a very long day and the next few hour won´t be easy too. In a different way maybe, but nonetheless draining. He silently prays that he made the right decision in doing what he is about to do. After all these years, years so full of darkness and shadows, that he struggled believing there´s still light. Standing in front of the cameras THAT was the right thing to do. Others who have been through the same nightmare needed to know, needed to hear, from someone who has been there, that the cliches Gordinski is telling, are just that – cliches. They need to know things CAN be different. And the public needs to know it too. They need to know what Rodney did is not inevitable. They have a choice. Derek exhales slowly, while cracking the old skewed door, with the flaking color, open. Derek feels relieved for the moment. Everyone came, everyone Derek is considering family, even Will and Kevin are here. He is even more relieved that he is not seeing a specific thing – there is no pity in their eyes. Insecurity is there, now that they can´t rely on their professionalism like they had to in Chicago to stop the killings, to hunt down Rodney. This isn´t the job. Right here and now they aren´t Supervisory Special Agents, they aren´t profiler, analysts or a cop. It ain´t Chicago. Insecurity is okay, Derek is prepared for that. And maybe the insecurity will disappear after he´s done. 

The teams surprise about the location is obvious, Derek almost smiles. Except for David Rossi, he was here before and it seems he expected to meet right here. Before someone can ask about the house, Penelope trips over a floor board. Derek may be tired, but his reflexes are still sharp. Penelope is holding onto him with a tight grip. “How … how are you? JJ said you´re okay … how can you possibly be okay?”, she asks, her voice trembling with emotions. Derek isn´t surprised at all that Pen almost sobs. He knows her for a long a time, they are best friends. Knowing each other almost to the T. Derek gently strokes her cheek. “JJ is right, Baby Girl. I am not saying it´s easy … but … it´s okay. It really is.” It takes a few minutes till she gets her composure back.

As long as it takes for everybody helping themselves with coffee from the thermos jug (Spencer frowned a little – no one thought about sugar), beer or coke form the chillybox. Dereks mind wanders off again. If one knows him well enough one would notice that his face hardens for a moment, the soft smile disappeared for several heartbeats. 

“No one will believe you, boy. …. Think about how people would look at you …. They´ll dump you … cut you out of their lives … you´ll be a filthy embarrassment to them … they will not even look at you anymore ...”

His hand clenched around the beer bottle with a grip so firm, he almost breaks the glass. The words like an infinite loop in his mind. Derek turns away from his team as this one sentence re- echos through his head, the one sentence he heard most when he was a child. The sentence – painted on the shutter in that mom – and – pop shop and on that garbage bin. 

“Look up to the sky, you better man up, boy”

Without making a sound, his lips forming the words: “No, no, you´re not right about that. I will prove your wrong.” Breathing in hard and squaring his shoulders, Derek turns back to the team. From across the room, which is supposed to be a kitchen again one day, he is catching a gaze, that brings back the soft smile. Derek clears his throat and instantly everyone is looking at him. Visibly curious to hear what he has to say. His throat feels like if its filled with dust. He needs another sip of beer to start. No, this really isn´t easy, but he came to far within the last hours to chicken out now. 

“You know Buford´s dead, right?”, Derek sees their surprise, not because this is news, they already knew that. They are surprised because he´s bringing it up now. He continues in this low voice: “Buford is free, but I am not. I am still a prisoner.” For a heartbeat he is closing his eyes. He feels so terribly tired. More than just physically tired. “You know how people like Buford are. How they operate and get away with what they do. They are … Carl IS a master manipulator.” Derek can see that Spencer is about to say something, Pen too, but not now. He is raising his hand to stop . First he needs to say all he has to say. And he needs to do it uninterrupted. “Carl and others like him, they get away with it, because they shift the blame. They manipulate US into believing that it´s our fault. He made me BELIEVE that it was MY fault what HE did TO ME. That everything was entirely my fault, that he is the real victim – not I.” 

They gaze back at him appalled. It is one thing to hear such things on the job. But hearing Derek, one of their one, Derek a man they consider family, talking about Buford, the man that molested and raped him in his childhood, is a completely different thing. 

“I really believed Carl, I believed him. I viewed myself as something filthy, as an embarrassment, as dirty and not worthy of the good things, because I made a hero like Carl do these things.” Dereks voice is trembling and gruff, but he did not look down, he needs his strength not to do so, but he continues to look them in their eyes. “I believed it for years, decades. Even when I got out of this nightmare, even when I finally became a cop and later made my way to the FBI, a part of me, a very strong part kept believing it. No matter what my mind said. This part of me kept believing Carl and so I never said anything. I kept my mouth shut. I believed him, when he said no one will help me, no one will believe my side of the story. And the bitter truth is – he is not entirely wrong. People turn a blind eye. And there are other things, you grow up, you go to college, you hear how the other guys talk, how they blame the victims. How they say, a girl had it coming cause she´s dressing sexy. Or that a guy must be a wimp or a fag if he can´t defend himself.” Derek needs another sip. “And you just want to forget, hell, that´s everything you want. It works for a while. Eventually you wanna talk about it, but your ability to trust is so damaged, you just can´t.” 

 

“Um … but … but that´s not true.”, Spencers voice is almost as low as Dereks, Penelope nods in helpless agreement. 

“Part of me knew it, but I couldn´t believe it. Carls voice was louder and more convincing. Every time that other part spoke up, I immediately silenced it. I couldn´t see that it could be different, that I could be different. I couldn´t see that I am worthy of help or that I am worthy of good things at all. I couldn´t see that I hadn´t to be lonely and isolated. That I hadn´t to be a prisoner, cause that´s exactly what I was. He gave me the bricks, but I built the prion myself and locked me up with my own hands.”, is Derek trying to explain how he felt. His eyes catching the look of even darker eyes than his own, gathering strength from the other mans gaze. “Now that Buford is dead I realized something. He is free, but I remain his prisoner. I still listen to his poison, his paralyzing voice. And I can´t be free as long as I keep my mouth shut, as long as I am not talking, I am stuck in this nightmare. As long as I am silent, I am not me, I am just a role, I am just his puppet. And I don´t want to be like this anymore. I can´t do this any longer. I wanna be free, I want my life back. I don´t wanna waste my strength for putting on masks. And there is another thing I need to tell.”

This time no one is saying a word while he pauses. There is still insecurity in their eyes, but all of them glancing back at him with reassuring looks. There is another thing Derek is realizing now. It doesn´t matter how they react, it doesn´t matter how they look at him. It´s not important if he´s at peace on that subject with Desi, Sara or his Mom. He only need to be at peace with himself. “If I am not comfortable with myself, no one else will.” The thought brightens his smile. But nonetheless he will try to explain as good as possible. 

“One day I came to terms with myself and realized something, something that made it worse. Something that erased every doubt I may have had on Carl, I could practically hear his laughter.”, he´s pausing again to take a sip, his throat feels painfully hoarse by now. “What was it you realized?”, JJ can´t help herself but to ask. “I realized I am gay. I was so convinced Carl, the jerks from the football team were right. I was convinced everyone who didn´t know squat about how it feels to be abused and raped was right. I couldn´t handle it anymore … I … I almost killed myself.”

Dereks words fall like rocks into the expectant silence. Pen is gasping for air and David is raising an eyebrow. For a second panic seems to overturn him not knowing what shocked them more – that he just admitted he was about to commit suicide or that he is homosexual. Every muscle feels tense while he´s slowly breathing out. 

“Kiddo? No one in this room would believe, even for a split second, that was Carl did to you is less horrible and brutal because you are gay.”, David is the one breaking the silence. The senior agent and bestselling author continues after a few seconds, slightly frowning. “But there is one more thing you want to tell us, am I right?” The built up tension Derek feels is lighten up a bit, of course David knows there is more. Well, David Rossi is a legend and about the internal memo not to profile each other … 

Derek nods and smiles this special smile. “Yes, there is one more thing. I wanna be myself, I wanna stop hiding and this means, I don´t wanna hide for one more minute the man I love. The energy this hide and seek costs me is better spend on the good things.” Again his eyes are wandering across the room, eventually they stop at another pair of eyes. Dark, almost black in the dim light. The man to whom these dark eyes belong nods, puts his bottle away and through the gap between Alex and Spencer, Aaron Hotchner comes forward. Aaron stops in front of Derek, smiling affectionately at him. “No more hiding, no longer prisoner.”, Derek whispers. And now Aaron is convinced that Derek made the right call. Telling the team everything. Chicago and what happened there was draining on him too. Seeing Derek in so much pain … Aaron had done what was within his powers, he helped with his professionalism to get Derek through this. Professionalism was what Derek needed in Chicago. 

The team is clearly surprised, but Derek can´t see their looks right now. Aaron wrapped his arms around him and Derek is hiding his face in the crook of Aarons neck. Deeply inhaling his scent, listening to Aarons heartbeats, feeling the warmth of Aarons skin, all these can calm him down like nothing else. And the remaining tension is vanishing. Aaron covers his temple with tender kisses. Both don´t know how long they just stood there like this. Just holding each other. Eventually Derek is loosing the embrace and turning to a sobbing Penelope. “See, Pen, I told you, he is okay.”, says JJ in an attempt to comfort her. “I … I … I can see that … I am just so touched.” Derek pulls her once again in his arms. “It won´t never be over. At least not entirely, mamma, but it is okay. It really is – now.”

Derek still looks tired and exhausted, but besides that, he looks comfortable, at peace, like he finally arrived at home. Of course home in this case means Aaron and himself. He leans against the skewed counter-top, Aarons arm around his waist, his head resting on Aarons shoulder. Yes, Derek is finally at home. He is proud of what he accomplished, proud of this family here. That they indeed had Carl proven wrong. They are here, not one of them turned away. Quite the opposite, they assured him their support. Penelope is laughing and Spencer is stunned, the young doctor can´t believe how long his boss and Derek are in love. That this is going on for years. That it began in New York, after they took down that terror cell, while Derek drove the injured Aaron back home to Quantico. How difficult it was for Derek to give it a shot. Not because of Aaron or FBI regulations, because of the darkness within himself. How many shadows, how many lows they had to fight to make it work. It´s still not easy, it´s just different, sometimes there are 2 steps forward and 3 steps backwards. 

For a moment Dereks face hardens again and automatically Aaron tightens his grip around him, assures him silently that he is not alone. Alex asked about his family back in Chicago. It didn´t went well, not nearly as well as he had hoped. Especially with Sara. Derek wishes from the bottom of his heart, he could find a way to close the gap between him and his older sister. He just don´t know how. Maybe one day, but for now – he can only be himself, he can no longer be the man Sara wants him to be. Being Derek is task enough. JJ had hugged him and whispered in his ear: “It´s okay, you have family right here.” JJ is right, he knows that now. Family begins with blood, but family certainly doesn´t end with blood. Derek is leaning a little closer against Aaron. Enjoying Aarons warmth, his embrace. 

Will found the old record player and the jazz music playing in the former living room across the hall is filling the ground floor. Through the hole in the walls, where at some point in time a door hung in its hinges, Derek sees Kevin asking Pen for a dance. Alex is trying to teach Spencer a few steps. Derek is laughing at this sight. He tried it himself, but Spencer is just hopeless. Yes, Derek is tired, really tired, but at this very moment, everything feels good, and so he nods when Aaron pulls him onto the improvised dance-floor. “Derek? Just one question. I understand as good as possible why you told us all this, but why here?”, Kevin asks after a while. And again everyone is looking at him.

“Everything that happened the last days means a fresh start, not just for myself and Aaron. For us all, as a team and as a family. And this house … it needs to be restored basically from scratch. Maybe we can make it a family project, everyones help is more than welcome.”, Derekanswers and Aaron nods. Aaron can´t imagine how this house will look like someday, not as good as Derek, but he doesn´t care about that much. For Aaron only matters that they finally will have a house and that he will live in it with Derek, Jack and Clooney. And the most important point of all is anyway that Derek arrived home. He just proofed it. 

******************************************

“How did you know Pen won´t transform this into an nightmare of glitter and confetti? Or that Spencer won´t cause some minor catastrophes?”, Aaron asks, closing his book and putting it on the nightstand.   
Derek is closing the door, he just looked after Jack. Their little boy hasn´t fully settled in yet. Aaron pats the sheets and Clooney is hopping onto the bed. The pit bull always gives Aaron the chance to keep his face as pack leader. 

“Spencer does have a degree in engineering, amongst other doctorates.”, Derek replies, thoroughly placing his training pants over a chair. “Sure, and his practical abilities are outstanding.”, chuckles Aaron. Derek laughs and climbs into bed, he is still smiling when his head rests on Aarons chest and their hands intertwine.

“To be honest, I just knew it, because I trust them.”

Aaron is kissing Derek on his short stubbles with tenderness and in response Derek is leaning closer against him. Derek came along way and there is a long way ahead of him, ahead of both of them. It´s not over, some things never heal, not fully. But at least Derek isn´t alone in the dark anymore. Aaron can´t fix him, and it´s not his job to fix Derek anyway, but he can sit with him in the dark and point him in the direction where he can find a spark of light. And that ´s what counts.


End file.
